weed disposal

dear all,

can anyone solve an ongoing dispute between me and my dad?

some time ago i was advised by a friend that it is best to bag all weeds that i gather from my garden and dispose of them at the local recycling centre as this would help reduce the number of weeds that i would have to dig up in the long run.

this i have been doing with all the weeds that i have been digging up from my new garden until the old fella came out to lend a hand and proclaimed that there is absolutely no advantage to doing this, he puts all of my grandmothers weeds in a corner of her garden.

so i was wandering if anybody else did this and if they noticed any difference in the long run?

A.:D

 

Hi Acky. (welcome to GC by the way). Composting the weeds (at least some of them) is fine. But just piling them in the corner, with due respect to your Dad, is not really very clever. They seed. The seeds blow over your garden. And what do you have? The same weeds. It's not just the long run, it's the following year. Oh dear Dad. Get sensible.:D

 

Hi acky!

It is usually recommended to compost annual weeds (groundsell/bittercress etc), and to bin perennial weeds (dandilion/ground elder/buttercup/welsh poppy etc), the thought being that unless you have a big and hot enough compost heap, the perennial weeds' roots will just regrow where distributed. Annual weeds will compost away nicely - though the seed may not be destroyed if your compost' not a hot one either.

I through out seeding/perennial weeds, and compost annuals, and have no bigger a problem than your average gardener with weeds.

 

Hi Acky and welcome. There is a saying in gardening, " one years seeding is 7 years weeding ". Keep doing it your way.:D:thumb:

 

I burn my weeds and the ashh from the fire i did into the ground

 

Jimbo, your lucky to be able to have a bonfire to burn your weeds. I have to put up with everyone's stinky barbeques around her but I am not allowed a wholesome bonfire or the fun of watching it burn - oh for the days of my childhood - everyone loves to poke a bonfire!LOL

 

Thanks everyone for the replies, i will try to compost my weeds (annuals,) as along with my new house/garden i have inherited a compost heap. i need to look into what each weed in my garden is and whether they are annual/perennial.

The composting process in general is something that i need to find out more about too.

cheers

 

Weeds themselves shouldn't survive the composting process, but I do wonder about the seeds. The way some things spread around the garden I suspect they are surviving the composting. I believe some seeds germinate when they get back in to the light.

 

I must admit I compost all my weeds, as I can't be fagged putting some out for recycling.
But I always try to pull them up before seeding, and if possible with things like bindweed I leave them in hot sun until withered (or tie them in a binbag until dead). If I have a lot I also shred them.

 

Seeds - weeds or otherwise are pretty tough things. We've found that in our worm bins (short cycle) they tend to survive, but in our two-year cycle main heap survival is very much less. Having said that we now consign any obviously seeding weeds to the recycling bin where we know they'll end up being well cooked in the council's massive compost heaps.